


Begin Again

by passive_phantom



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: 5+1 Things, Character Death, M/M, POV Andrew Minyard, Post-Canon, Then again maybe I watch a different Netflix than you, There is mild sexual content, but I have no idea where the line between explicit and mature is, but it's like netflix sex not hbo sex, did you see the character death tag, if that makes sense, it's there, no happy ending, someone teach me pls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:54:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28173507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/passive_phantom/pseuds/passive_phantom
Summary: It starts with an almost illegibly-scrawled message on the back of a cheap photographic reproduction of Falmouth Beach, and a single line that, like everything else in Andrew Minyard's life, he will never forget.Or: five times that Andrew gets postcards from Neil and one time that he doesn’t, set against the backdrop of six different beaches.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 7
Kudos: 47





	1. i. Falmouth Beach, Falmouth, MA

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a few months ago and then didn’t know what to do with it, so I’m just gonna quietly leave this here to put it out of my brain. 
> 
> *MCD tag will apply to chapters 5 and 6.*

◊◊◊

_it's Cold and miserable_

That’s all it says.

Andrew flips it over to check the front, just in case Neil decided to write some secret message amongst the blue and white frothy waves of the Atlantic. 

There’s nothing there, though. Only a few cheery sailboats bobbing in the high tide, the scene cut in half by a ribbon of text: _VISIT_ _FALMOUTH TODAY!_ It’s all rather aggressive, in Andrew’s opinion. Not that the Falmouth Tourism Board asked him, but still. It seems a little tactless. A better tagline would’ve been _PLEASE DON’T EXPECT MUCH,_ Andrew decides. Or _WE RELY HEAVILY ON TOURISM DOLLARS TO SUPPORT OUR LOCAL ECONOMY._ He bets they sell $40 sweatshirts with _FALMOUTH_ embroidered across the front in five-inch letters. He bets Neil will come back with a black one that gets unsubtly left on the foot of Andrew’s bed. 

But in reality, there’s probably no nice way to sell a place like Falmouth, especially when it’s March and no one in their right mind is going to step foot into the freezing Atlantic. No one but Neil Josten, who is very much not in his right mind. ****

Andrew turns the postcard back over and reads Neil’s scribbled message again, because he hates this particular sentence very, very much.

_it's Cold and miserable_

No punctuation, an incorrectly capitalized _‘C’_ in _Cold._ And when he looks more closely, he notices a smudge of a blue-ink fingerprint in the corner, like a crescent moon.

“Ready in five,” Coach Nance shouts across the locker room, and there’s a staccato of locker doors slamming as the rest of the Dolphins get ready to head onto the court.

Andrew doesn’t move. 

It’s kind of stupid that Neil didn’t sign his name, but it’s not like Andrew is going to get postcards from anyone else. Plus, Neil’s blocky handwriting hasn’t improved in the few years that Andrew has known him, so it would be impossible to mistake this for, say, Allison’s perfect cursive, or Nicky’s loopy scrawl. 

“You got something good?” Thompson asks, his hand coming to rest on Andrew’s shoulder pad. 

The touch isn't what it once was, but it's still unwelcome.

Slowly, deliberately, Andrew shrugs out of his reach and sets the sunny-happy shoreline of Falmouth onto the top shelf of his locker, rolling his neck before slamming the door shut.

“Mind your own fucking business,” Andrew says in a voice gilded with the promise of violence.

Thompson does - he’s a reasonable man, after all. He steps back with his hands raised.

No knives today, then. 

As Thompson retreats, Andrew decides that maybe it’s a good thing that Neil didn’t sign his name. God knows how much more difficult Andrew’s life would be if his current teammates knew he had one _(just one)_ soft spot, and they're nosy enough as it is. His team doesn’t need more fodder for gossip, and in that respect, they are all-too-similar to the Foxes.

When Andrew follows the rest of the Atlanta Dolphins out onto the court to the chorus of fifteen thousand screaming fans, he only thinks of the way Neil looked the last time they spoke, wrapped in Andrew’s duvet, his shoulders hunched and chin tucked almost to his chest. They'd been in Andrew's apartment, hidden away in solitude between Neil's exams and Andrew's interviews with ESPN-Exy about the upcoming playoff season.

 _It's up to you,_ Andrew said, tracing imaginary shapes into the wrinkles of his duvet. 

_It’s a bad idea,_ Neil told him. 

_What else is new?_ Andrew asked, tugging on the duvet until Neil relinquished just enough for Andrew to start unwrapping him. 

He had set his hands on Neil’s thighs, feeling the tension caught in the muscle there.

 _I don't have to go,_ Neil said.

Andrew had hummed his agreement, and Neil only pulled the duvet up around his shoulders a little more before nodding, as though that settled things.

And Andrew had (wrongly) assumed the topic would be dropped after that. 

But he doesn’t have time to think about that night right now. By halftime, he’s only had ten minutes of play time after spending most of the game on the bench, turning over Neil’s newest words in his mind. 

_it's Cold and miserable_

He wonders if Neil sent it from the beach itself, escaping the bitter March cold by hiding inside of some tourist trap. He wonders if Neil lingered at a carousel of postcards next to the shop counter, listening to the metal-on-metal squeak as he spun the rack until he found this particular one. Whether he asked if Matt had a pen, scribbling out his message and slapping a stamp on his literary masterpiece before depositing it in one of those big blue letter boxes and trudging off to stare into the depths of an ocean he'd rather not look at. He wonders if Neil really meant it - the _miserable_ part.

From the way the letters are pressed into the paper - cheap ballpoint ink applied with far too much pressure to be anything but hostile - Andrew thinks these words are the truth.

If not for the back-to-back games this week, Andrew would have been there with him. But the Dolphins are nothing if not inflexible (something about contracts and professionalism and _emergency leave only),_ so it’s just Neil and Matt and Dan and Allison in Massachusetts.

(He wonders how Renee feels about being apart from Allison.)

But Andrew and the rest of the missing Foxes are busy, and none of them thought going to Massachusetts in March was a particularly good idea to begin with.

Neil had been adamant, of course. Something about his past. Something about moving on.

As if that’s possible.

 _Before graduation,_ Neil had said. And he took that part a little too seriously; his self-imposed sixteen week deadline didn’t give any of them much of a chance to plan for time off. (Not that Andrew is counting the weeks until Neil’s graduation.) 

Two minutes before he’s due back on court, Andrew pulls out his phone.

It's stupid, but he can't stop himself from pulling up the photo that Allison had sent him two days ago of Neil in a neon orange puffy coat and a scarf, red-nosed and miserable looking. 

It’s the Dolphin’s hat pulled low over Neil's forehead, though, that really makes Andrew’s face tick. 

He looks bitter, all wrapped up against a hostile cold front. So very small and fragile against the backdrop of a massive ocean.

Serves him right for deciding the best time to take a trip to the beach was _March._ To the _North Atlantic._ It's his own fault for not picking Hawaii or Miami or Malibu, or at the very least waiting until the end of April. 

But no, Neil Josten wanted Falmouth Beach, in _Massachusetts,_ in early March. And going by the photo, it’s every bit as terrible as Andrew expected. Sickly pale sands, washed-out skies, uneven shorelines dotted with too many rocks. It’d probably be a nicer place in the middle of summer, when the water doesn’t threaten frostbite quite so forcefully. When there’s actual sun, like how it looks on the postcard.

Although Andrew still thinks the postcard looks too fake in that hyperrealistic, photoshopped kind of way that postcards often do. 

When he returns to the goal at the end of the second half as a last-ditch effort by Coach Nance to shut out the Des Moines Demons, he only plays half-heartedly. He’s thinking about Falmouth and Neil and oceans and beaches. They’re down by far too many points to have any hope of winning since their strikers seem incapable of pulling their act together tonight, and there’s no chance of bridging an eleven point gap in the final few minutes.

Andrew spends more time wondering how Neil is doing seven hundred miles away than he does thinking about the shots being made by the Demons. Even distracted, he still doesn’t let in a single point for the rest of the game. 

The Dolphins still lose, 23-15. It’s not remotely Andrew’s fault, even though he didn’t exactly try. It’s not like he’s in charge of scoring points, which is where their real deficit as a team lies. 

By the time he gets showered and dressed, his phone has a new picture from Allison waiting for him with a single message: _his_ _flight leaves at 9 tonight._

As though Andrew needs reminding.

But he stares at the new picture, featuring Neil in front of a stout white lighthouse. The sky is a depressing grey. Low-hanging clouds skirt the top of the beacon, and he’s got a hand up to shield his face as he stares directly up at the Fresnel lens, his back to the camera. But Andrew knows exactly how his face would look if it was visible: nose scrunched up, eyes half-squinted shut, eyebrows furrowed. Determination and regret and grief etched in the downturn of his mouth. 

Andrew wants to delete it, but his finger does nothing more than hover over the button before he admits defeat and saves it instead. 

He’s shameful. 

Worst part is, Neil’s still wearing the Dolphin’s hat in the new picture. 

◊◊◊

Neil flies into Atlanta the next weekend, after his own Friday night home game at PSU, before Andrew’s Sunday away game in Florida. It should be a two day span between their respective Exy obligations, but thanks to the timing of Neil’s flights, that has been further reduced to a meager fifteen hours together. 

Andrew plans on wasting none of those talking about North Falmouth.

“It was terrible,” Neil says as he drops his backpack on the floor. Andrew half expects a cloud of sand to erupt from it, a ghostly intrusion from the damned place itself. “Allison’s family has a house a few miles inland, and we took a ferry to - what’s the name - one of those wine places she likes? I can’t remember.” 

Andrew slides a hand around the back of Neil’s head, crowding him against the wall. As receptive as always, Neil relaxes into the touch and groans as Andrew starts pressing his lips to the side of Neil's neck. 

“Winery,” he murmurs. 

“Yeah, that. Winery. And we - God, I missed this - we went to Nobska Lighthouse,” Neil continues between heavy breaths. _"Fu_ _ck,_ do that again. The lighthouse. Nobska. They have a fourth order Fresnel lens. Still - still operational. Paid for by a charity or something. Not the real coastguard anymore. And we took a tour -” 

Today, Andrew hates lighthouses. He’s had nothing against them in most of the time, but right now, there is nothing he’d like less than to hear the words _fourth order Fresnel lens_ when he’s trying to get in his boyfriend’s pants. 

Neil curls a hand around Andrew’s hip, pulling him closer as he lets out a breathy moan.

“Missed you -” Neil says, leaning his forehead against Andrew’s to catch his breath. “I missed you.”

Andrew pulls back, surveying Neil’s expression. His cheeks are flushed, same as the photo Allison sent from the beach, but he’s got a shadow of a smile across his lips, real but faint. 

Andrew doesn’t take anything Neil says seriously, not when they're desperate like this. When Neil gets like this, throwing around phrases like _I missed you,_ Andrew reminds him that it’s the novelty of long-distance speaking. Once they’re in the same town again, things won’t be this desperate. Things won’t feel like the same.

Although Andrew said the same thing when he graduated last year and offered to break things off: _it won’t be the same when we’re apart._

That hadn’t gone over well. 

_You’ll still be the only one that I want,_ Neil insisted. 

Somehow, they were both right. Things _are_ different, but Neil still shows up once every few weeks when the stars align, with hands and lips and eyes for Andrew alone, his body a freely given gift that Andrew hasn't tired of yet. 

Now, for instance. He’s already achingly hard from dry-humping Neil against the wall while talking about _lighthouses._ This is exactly the kind of thing eighteen-year-old Andrew would’ve done, exactly the kind of thing that twenty-three year old Andrew should have grown out of by now. 

It’s a little concerning how unbothered he is by the entire lighthouse discussion once Neil starts playing with the hem of his shirt. Andrew suddenly doesn’t care if Neil talks about the Nobska Lighthouse or Normandy or nihilism during sex; all he wants is Neil’s body beneath his, skin on skin until they’re both panting from the exertion of their quiet, shared release.

They end up on Andrew’s bed, the covers spilled across the floor as Andrew pulls Neil on top of him, until Neil is straddling his hips. Their movements are synchronized as they remove layer after goddamned layer of clothes until Andrew finally gets his wish: skin on skin on skin. 

Neil is as glorious as always, full of promise and easy movements that wind Andrew tighter and tighter until he’s an impatient, desperate mess, pulling his impatient fingers out of Neil only to push into him seconds later. The first motion is a slow roll of his hips while Neil adjusts, followed by a few experimental thrusts. 

But when Neil mutters _let go,_ Andrew does, too. Every damn time.

It should be upsetting how easily Neil settles every loose thought in Andrew's head, and he tries not to think about how quickly he relaxes when Neil is around. He buries himself firmly inside of Neil when his body tenses, his orgasm already threateningly close after fifteen days apart. His breath skirts that back of Neil’s neck as he tries to stop it, focusing on anything but the wet heat of Neil around him. 

“What’s wrong?” Neil asks, trying to roll onto his side. He's confused as Andrew pulls out, dangerously close to coming across Neil’s back.

Andrew doesn’t want this to be over.

He never wants it to be over, but everything comes to an end.

His body wasn't so easily undone before - it wasn't until he graduated and moved to Atlanta for the Dolphins that he started to come apart in what feels like a matter of seconds. Realistically, he knows Neil has been teasing him since Andrew picked him up at the airport an hour ago, but that span of time feels like nothing when he thinks about how long they’ll have to wait before they do this again. He squeezes Neil’s shoulder, flipping him onto his stomach so they're face to face. 

“Nothing,” he answers, sliding back into Neil. 

He doesn’t last much longer, not when Neil pulls him down and presses a kiss to the side of Andrew's neck, not when his hands are buried in Andrew's hair as they breathe each other in and out. But it’s actually Neil who finishes first, and when Andrew pulls out and comes across Neil’s stomach a moment later, he can’t help but marvel at the sight. And when Neil starts to settle, Andrew draws lines across Neil's chest with one finger. He traces out his initials across freckles and scars and bare skin alike, his very own private canvas. 

Neil is far too gone to care, and after Andrew cleans him off, he rolls onto his back with a quiet _oomph_ to let Andrew continue his masterpiece on a new patch of skin. 

Andrew presses a kiss to Neil’s shoulder once he’s done, and earns a quiet _mmmph_ in return. 

“Did it work?” Andrew asks, once he thinks Neil is capable of coherent speech again.

“Mmph,” Neil hums again, turning to face Andrew. His cheek is already creased from being smashed against the pillows, and there’s very little space between their noses like this. Andrew can count the freckles across Neil’s cheeks from here. When Andrew stays quiet, Neil opens his eyes and frowns at him.

“I mean, yeah, I finished first, didn't I?” Neil stifles a yawn with his fist. "You want compliments on your performance? I can do that, too. It felt great when you-"

“I meant the beach,” Andrew says dryly, trying to ignore the way he knows his face is burning from the praise. Neil knows all-too-well how to push each and every one of Andrew’s buttons by now. 

Neil yawns again, struggling to keep his eyes open, but he catches Andrew’s blush and smirks. “Right. Yeah. I thought that was obvious.” 

“I’m being serious,” Andrew says. 

Andrew feels Neil’s yawn more than he sees it this time, the steep rise and fall of Neil’s chest reverberating through his own as he nestles one of his legs between Neil’s. 

His breathing starts to even out, until Andrew is almost sure that he’s asleep. Then, he takes a tiny double-inhale, a shudder, and Andrew knows he’s very far from it. 

“It wasn’t great,” Neil says, his voice drowsy. “But I want to try again. Eventually. With you.” 

They’ve been at this long enough that Neil knows exactly what Andrew means when he slides a protective arm around his waist, until their bodies are once again pressed so close that Andrew begins to doubt whichever physicist said two atoms can’t inhabit the same space because they fucking _can_ when one of them belongs to Andrew and the other belongs to Neil and they create their own gravity.

Thankfully, Neil knows what _I’ll do better next time_ sounds like in Minyard-speak, and they both eventually find sleep in each other’s arms, sticky and sweaty and safe.

◊◊◊

The next morning - assuming 3:40 AM counts as morning - Neil takes Andrew in his mouth and wrenches a trainwreck of an orgasm out of him, one that leaves him boneless and dizzy and a little confused. He tries to return the favor, sleepily propping himself on his elbows and reaching, sleep-clumsy, for Neil’s shorts, but Neil kisses him chastely on the lips and says _can’t. Flight’s in an hour fifty._

It’s the only kind of goodbye Andrew allows since they started living in different states, because he doesn’t think he can handle _see you later_ any better than Neil can. It still doesn’t stop the way his mind goes blank once the door shuts quietly behind Neil, or the way he feels his chest start to coil tighter as soon as he's gone, a spring that will only release once Neil’s back in his (rightful) place in Andrew’s bed or on Andrew’s sofa or in Andrew’s arms. 

They both chase these moments like addicts, running after each high with a kind of singular-minded recklessness that should scare Andrew. 

It’s been far too long since he has stood at the edge of a roof and looked down into the darkness. Too long since he felt the spike of his heart rate, the sweat on his palms. He wonders if that’s what the beach is to Neil: that inescapable panic that surges through him at the thought of falling. 

But 3:40 AM isn’t an hour for thinking of beaches or darkness or falling. It's an hour for Neil to slip into the back of a taxi, an hour of Andrew to ignore the painful ache in his throat when he listens to the dead silence of an unoccupied apartment after the front door falls shut. His pulse is deafening in his ears.

It's easier to handle this kind of parting when he's unconscious, so Andrew doesn't try to hold onto the smell of Neil in his sheets, his duvet, his pillows. He doesn't want to feel the mattress slowly go cold next to him. He doesn't want to open his eyes and find himself alone.

The only escape from reality is a heavy, dreamless sleep that drags him under before he gets Neil’s text saying he made it to the airport. When he wakes again, lazy sunshine spills across his bed, a crosshatching of light and shadow split by the blinds across his window. He stumbles out of bed and makes his way to the kitchen, like every other day that he wakes up alone in Atlanta. 

It's familiarity and routine and it's what he relies on when Neil is gone.

It's only two weeks. He repeats that to himself over and over again as he turns on the coffee machine and sets a mug on the counter, puts the pot under the tap to fill. He rubs his eyes, drags a hand through is hair. Two weeks is two weeks too long and he -

He left the postcard on the fridge, where it's staring back at him with too much cheer right now. He was too preoccupied with taking Neil apart last night to take it down. 

Honestly, he’d had every intention of removing it before Neil arrived, because if Neil saw it, he would know exactly what it meant.

And now Neil has most definitely seen it. 

He should've burned it when he still had the chance.

The coffee pot overflows under the faucet behind him, abandoned mid-task. He reaches over numbly to shut off the water and ends up staring at the fridge door in silence for too long.

It would’ve been better if Neil had been swept away into the frigid Atlantic after all. 

Because the postcard is still there, under a fox-shaped magnet. 

It’s not improved in the slightest by the two new words Neil has tacked on to the very end.

_it's Cold and miserable_

_without you_


	2. ii. Lake Norman, NC

“Largest body of man-made water this side of the state line,” Neil recites as Andrew pulls into the guesthouse driveway. Gravel crunches under their tires as they stop, and the engine’s low purr cuts out abruptly when Andrew shuts off the Maserati. 

Neil squints at his phone screen, glancing up just in time to catch the tail end of Andrew’s eye roll.

“No idea what that means, though. _Man made lake._ What’d they do, forget to turn off a hose?” Neil mutters under his breath.

He pops open the glove compartment, shuffling through the contents in search of something.

Andrew is wearing a Lion’s hat - a gaudy yellow and red thing - and he does his absolute best to look unimpressed as he puts the parking brake on, lest the Maserati goes rogue sometime in the night and decides to roll into the largest man-made lake this side of the state line. 

It isn’t fair that Neil chose the only pro team that had worse colors than PSU, but it’s not like Andrew can take off the hat yet. 

Neil just gave it to him fifteen minutes ago.

And he doesn’t give Andrew much, so Andrew is going to wear the stupid thing until Neil does something unforgiveable, like ask him to keep it on during sex or (worse) in public, and then maybe he’ll burn it.

Or maybe he'll keep it and wear it to interviews, cause a real PR nightmare for the Dolphins. He's spent the past two years dealing with their bullshit and his contract is almost up and he’s kind of hated Atlanta ever since Neil moved more than just an hours’ plane ride away. 

Maybe Andrew will get traded to the Lions faster if he shows a more public allegiance to Neil’s team.

Neil continues his rambling, pulling out a box of bandaids and an old insurance card from the glove compartment. “I mean, it's a glorified puddle. Why’s that so exciting? That _is_ what people like about this place, right?"

It’s really not. Andrew read extensive reviews about Lake Norman before choosing it as their vacation getaway, and _largest man-make lake in North Carolina_ was not mentioned once. 

_Secluded retreat. Relaxing. Homey. Private vacation getaway. Disconnect from the stresses of everyday life. Romantic weekend away._ Those are the reasons most people visit this corner of the world, not because it's the largest man-made lake this side of the state line.

Not that Andrew chose it for those reasons, either, but he doubts anyone would write a Google review that says _great for trying to escape the trauma of witnessing your mother’s death_ (which, admittedly, would be a tad personal to admit to the greater Google community).

But it's a convenient half-day’s drive to Palmetto from here, so they can stop by to see Wymack and Abby and Bee before he has to drop Neil at the airport. 

And then Andrew will drive the rest of the way back to home-sweet-home in Atlanta.

Alone.

No flying necessary. Just the Maserati and the open road and an empty passenger seat.

He’s trying not to think too hard about how much he wants to just stay in this moment where Neil has his shoes kicked off into the footwell and his sweatshirt draped across the back of the seat and his (Lion's) water bottle in the cupholder and his hands tapping a nervous rhythm against the dash as he stares at the half-empty glovebox. 

Andrew wants his life to be full of moments like this. 

He doesn't know why they can't stay here forever in this gentle, unhurried in-between. But instead of thinking about what he can't have, he thinks about what he's got. And that's apparently a glorified puddle and a fidgety boyfriend and a very limited amount of time in which he can appreciate those two things. 

So he might hate Lake Norman just a little bit because it's not yet living up to expectations, because he feels more alone right now than he did back in Atlanta, as if being trapped in a car with Neil is making it somehow more difficult to bridge the space between them. As if it would be easier to keep the span of an entire continent between them for the next few days.

(The first few hours are always the hardest, re-learning the familiar closeness that used to be second nature to them. It comes in starts and stops, in _yes_ and _no_ and _here_ and _again.)_

But he never plans on letting Neil know just how much effort went into organizing this trip. Between two different training schedules for two different teams, the renovations in Andrew’s condo in Atlanta (not to sell it, _not to sell it),_ the cat Neil just adopted in Seattle, and Wymack’s gentle reminder that they can always visit PSU if they're within a few hundred miles of campus - between all of that, their lives are too full of moving parts nowadays for this weekend to be accidental.

They rarely seem to sync up like this anymore. Gone are the lazy evenings spent smoking on rooftops. Gone are the mornings that Andrew would wake up with a warm body next to him in an overcrowded dorm room that smelled like stale vodka and dried sweat and dirty laundry, when any amount of distance between them seemed like an impossibility instead of an inevitability. 

There’s an ocean between them nowadays. Not literally, but when there’s give-or-take 2,683 miles separating them, Andrew can’t help but feel like they’re drifting in opposite directions. It was different when Neil was still in his last year at PSU. They weren’t together often, but they felt connected enough that the in-between was bearable.

Two weeks seemed like an eternity back then, but now it goes by in the blink of an eye. 

Andrew doesn’t know if that’s better or worse.

As he watches Neil lean forward to press his forehead against the dash, something feels different between them.

This could just be Andrew, unused to the terrain of being twenty-five and in love with a man who currently chooses to spend his free time looking up tutorials online for homemade catnip toys. 

(Andrew isn’t the _least_ bit bitter about Sir.) 

This could just be Andrew, unused to the terrain of being in love.

Full stop.

He thinks Neil feels it, too, though. The drifting. The uncertainty. The poetic sadness in their separation, its shadow lingering even when they’re together. Andrew sees it written across the wrinkles of Neil’s forehead as he puts each individual item back into the glove compartment, starting with the tire gauge and ending with the title and registration.

He's clearly not looking for the registration, and when he pauses, so does Andrew.

There it is. In black and white under a bold heading:

**_OWNER(S)_ **

_**Minyard, Andrew J.** _

_**Josten, Neil A.** _

It’s such a simple thing, almost meaningless in the grand scheme, but he knows why Neil can’t stop staring at it. And he knows for certain then that Neil feels it, too.

The drifting, the difference, the days. 

Andrew takes the whole mess straight out of Neil’s hands and shoves it back into the glovebox, not wanting to deal with that right now. Not when he’s meant to be getting drunk on the feel of Neil’s tongue against his own, the feel of cold bedsheets on his back and humid afternoon air in his lungs and cigarettes passed between sex-clumsy fingers in a haze of wordless affection.

Affection that’s spoken in the sigh Andrew lets out whenever the fuzzy feeling in his veins starts to dull into an ache, a tingle, a spark that’s kissed away by the brush of Neil’s fingers against his skin. 

But they’re here in the Maserati, staring at the glovebox that Andrew just slammed shut like there’s a secret inside, dark and terrible and full of ink-black disappointment.

It doesn’t matter.

Andrew materializes a tube of SPF 50 from his pocket, having known all along what Neil wanted, having purposefully not left this within Neil’s reach. 

“Sunscreen,” he says firmly. "Use it." 

Neil spares one last glance towards the glove compartment.

“Sure.”

But he doesn’t take the tube for himself. He waits for Andrew to squeeze out a generous amount and paint it across his forehead and nose and cheeks, plus a smear on the top of each ear. Andrew’s fingers are sticky by the end, and they both smell like endless summer afternoons.

He wipes the excess on Neil’s neck, taking time to rub his thumbs up and down the column of his throat without any pretense of usefulness now that he’s done. 

“You’re enjoying this,” Neil mumbles, but his eyes are half-lidded and he’s almost purring in Andrew’s hands. 

Andrew keeps his _so are you_ to himself. 

That stupid cat is a bad influence.

He pinches Neil’s ear lightly for good measure and lets go. 

Maybe he should get a cat of his own. For revenge, of course, because Neil is filling the Andrew-shaped spaces in his life with a fucking _cat,_ so Andrew doesn’t see why he can’t do the same. 

Andrew’s cat compulsion has absolutely nothing to do with the crushing isolation he feels whenever he comes home after a long day of practice or an away game, three days of stagnant air built up when he opens the door to his condo. Nothing to do with the feeling of being forgotten while everyone is moving on with their lives. Nothing to do with the newfound ache he gets when he sits silently on the other end of a long-distance phone call between Georgia and Washington. 

For a moment, they stare at each other, sunlight catching in Neil’s hair as it spills through the trees surrounding them, speckled with bits of shadow. It’s ironic that Neil looks like he was made for summers: blue eyes dancing like turbulent waters, his skin forever warm underneath Andrew's fingers, a sunset burning behind his smile. 

Andrew knows that as soon as they step outside, his dream of a relaxing weekend will evaporate immediately with the 90-degree heat and 70% humidity, but beaches come at a price. He wonders if Neil regrets suggesting this trip yet. If he regrets asking for a manageable beach, for their to be sand and water and waves instead of mountains and snow and clouds. If he wishes they were anywhere but here. 

Andrew wishes for that. He hates the way his clothes are already starting to stick to his skin.

He hates the way that Neil is looking at him right now, and he hates that he’s exhausted from hating the Lions and Sir and Portland and Atlanta, and that he doesn’t want to be exhausted from hating Neil, too. Except he can’t say any of that out loud. The words get stuck in his throat, and Neil presses his lips into a thin line, like he knows exactly what Andrew wants to say and exactly why he can’t say it. 

But if he had to choose a beach to spend the next seventy-two hours on, it would be this one. Private. Small, only a swatch of sand fifty feet long that disappears into sparse evergreens. Barely a beach at all, but there’s sand and water and waves, just as requested, and he supposes that’s enough because Neil sucks in a long breath when he finally looks at it. 

After a few moments, Andrew tips Neil’s chin away from the window to stop him from staring. Towards the cabin tucked into a grove of trees instead of the sand.

When they step out of the car, the heat is just as bad as expected. Neil makes his way around the front of the Mas, his own hands buried deep in his pockets.

It’s just a borrowed patch of land, a place that won’t remember them after they leave. Unremarkable, uncomplicated. Andrew is willing to let it be their shelter for a while, but it will never be their home. 

He’s been thinking about that a lot lately: _home._ The cost of clawing his fingers into sandy dirt, of pulling up an ancient sycamore’s roots just to put down some of his own. The cost of trying to pretend that some part of this world could belong to him in a way that's meaningful. He could always pay an obscene amount of money for a plot of land that belonged to someone else before him and will belong to someone else long after he’s gone. That's the promise of _home,_ he thinks. That, for a little while, a place can belong to him if he kneels down and digs his hands into the dirt and spells out his name with his fingers splayed wide.

_Home._

He wonders if that’s what it feels like for Neil when they finally bridge the last few inches between them, when Neil wraps a hand across the back of Andrew’s neck to pull him closer, when his fingers fist into the front of Andrew’s shirt as he says a silent prayer: _s_ _tay, stay, stay._

That’s what Andrew thinks when he breathes in Neil and breathes out home. 

_Stay._

“It’s been a while,” Neil says, pressing his lips to Andrew’s neck.

Andrew doesn’t have anything to say to that, because it’s the truth: it's been a while. 

Simple.

Painstaking. 

True. 

And when they drag a pair of Adirondacks from the porch to the dock that evening, a couple of glasses of chilled gin sweating on the armrests, Andrew shuts his eyes and lets the sound of Neil’s slow breathing anchor him to this moment. 

Because out of all the moments he remembers, all of the hours and days and weeks and years they've spent together, he wants to earmark this particular breath as important. It feels important when Neil lets one hand dangle over the side of his chair and his fingers brush against the back of Andrew's neck, lose and easy and carefree. Not quite a smile on his face, but something close enough that they're both reminded of why this is worth it.

Eventually, Andrew abandons his chair to sit on the edge of the dock, letting his feet dangle over the edge as the water laps gently at his toes. Neil's doesn't follow suit, but Andrew doesn’t mind. He's content to listen to the water slapping against the dock, the chirping crickets in the forest behind them, the hum of a boat’s motor across the lake as night slips in around them.

It’s a peaceful feeling, and it soothes something inside of himself that he didn’t know needed soothing. 

Eventually, Neil pulls him up from the dock and leads him back inside.

It's almost been almost seven years since he first met Neil in Millport, but he doesn't hate any of this yet. 

◊◊◊

The next morning, Andrew runs tired hands across the bruises on Neil’s knees, elbows, shins, ribs. He catalogues every inch of damage until he's satisfied that none of it is permanent. 

"You should let your defensive dealers take some of these hits for you," Andrew says, pressing his thumb into a bruise on Neil's hip with a frown. 

Neil squirms. "No Exy talk today," he says quietly, and that's a first. 

Andrew pulls back but doesn't dare ask Neil if he's serious. He just presses his lips against patches of skin that no one else is allowed to see, leaving his own marks on Neil’s body alongside the rest of his bruises. Impermanence at it's finest. 

Andrew pulls back to watches Neil settle deeper into the mattress, lazy with exhaustion and gratitude and awe. 

“Don’t stop,” Neil mumbles, but they still have hours to fill, and Andrew has no intention of rushing this.

They have an eternity together, wrapped up inside of what feels like an impossibly short amount of time. A contradiction, an impossibility. 

Time stands still when Andrew rolls on top of Neil, pins him to the mattress, moves against him like the tides of the lake outside their window. It's a strange kind of gift to make such an ephemeral moment unfurl endlessly in front of them, assuming it can be called a gift at all.

But Andrew doesn't question it. 

He simply takes whatever Neil can give him, his hands roaming across miles of bare skin until it's too much. Their skin is already tacky with a mixture of sweat and saliva and lake water residue from last night, and Neil tastes different because of it. 

Andrew says two words quietly once Neil is already hot and panting and distracted, in the hopes that maybe they get misinterpreted. _"Need you."_

He needs a lot of things, it turns out. He needs someone to notice his absences, someone to miss him when he's gone, someone to wait for him to come home. He needs Neil, because there's no one else he can live with, no one else he can't live without. 

Neil seems to realize Andrew doesn't mean sex when he pulls back, still managing to look wrecked in the worst way possible. "Need what?" 

For a moment, Andrew stares at him. He takes in the way Neil's chest heaves, the way his muscles tense underneath Andrew's hand as he waits for an answer. 

And then Andrew leans down and bites gently along Neil's collarbone. "This," he says, unable to look Neil in the eye when he says it. 

Because that’s a lie. 

It's not about _this_ at all. 

Neil opens up to him like a book after that, as if he knows he can't give Andrew what he really needs, as if he's apologizing for not being more, as if that's even possible.

Their one perfect moment cracks open after that, a jagged fissure that separates them once again, but it's not enough to make Andrew want to stop. It's going to hurt either way, he decides, and he’s pinned too many things on this one weekend away. 

He needs this to mean more than it ever possibly could, and that's what hurts the most. 

He needs this to be forever, but it's not.

It never will be. 

This eternity won't belong to them for much longer, and Andrew slows the roll of his hips even more, leaning his forehead against Neil's shoulder as he tries to focus on the body beneath his. 

Neil stops him with a hand against his hip. Andrew is close, and he's barely able to draw himself back from the edge, but he's determined to do so if Neil needs something else right now. 

"You good?" Neil asks, keeping one hand on Andrew's chest. 

Andrew nods.

Neil props himself up on one elbow. “Really?” 

“Yeah," Andrew grunts, and Neil flops back down onto the mattress with a soft sigh. 

It only takes another minute before Andrew comes across Neil's stomach, but it feels empty. It leaves him exhausted, and he slumps onto the mattress besides Neil, staring up at the ceiling as he tries to figure out what went wrong this time. 

Eventually, he rolls over to pick his discarded boxers off of where they'd gotten caught on the headboard, and Neil wraps a hand around Andrew's wrist to stop him when he starts to put them on. 

"Okay?" Neil asks. 

Andrew shrugs, because he's not, but _maybe_ is a softer version of _no._ And these stolen moments only make it worse when they're apart, so no, he's not okay, but that has nothing to do with Neil or what they’re doing.

It’s because he’s not really here.

He’s already halfway back to Georgia.

Already alone.

"This," Neil trails a hand over his own exposed skin, tracing the scars along his stomach all the way down to his hips, "this is still good for me."

Neil still hasn't come yet, and Andrew feels the gaping hole inside of his chest acutely then, the one that he's pretty sure Neil feels, too. He doesn't want to say that _yes,_ this will always be good.

 _Always_ would only make him feel worse because it’s true - there’s no reality he can imagine where this isn’t good. 

So he nods, and Neil sighs, stroking himself slowly. After all this time, they both know a yes when they see one. Andrew pushes Neil's hand out of the way, taking over. He can do this one thing right, at least. 

“You're always good,” Neil says. 

It’s a side effect of the sex. That’s all Andrew can figure, given the way Neil’s expression settles into bittersweet wonder as he fucks Andrew's hand slowly, deliberately, like there is no greater feeling in the world. 

They’ve done some variation of this plenty of times since Neil moved to Seattle, but it’s been disconnected. Disjointed. Not unenjoyable, but never like this. He’d certainly remember if Neil had bitten down on his shoulder while he came, murmuring _want you, too_ into the span of silence that Andrew leaves unclaimed between them.

He’s never seen Neil fall apart quite so spectacularly, and that hurts, too, because he knows they will probably never talk about this again after the weekend is over. But he wants this, again and again and again. If only this feeling could stretch on a little longer. Not even forever - just for a few days more than they've got.

This terrible, beautiful, awful, feeling. 

But nothing lasts, and everything has it's end. He shivers when Neil rolls towards him, placing a hand over his beating heart. 

Neither of them move apart, but Andrew doesn’t ask what’s on Neil’s mind; he isn’t sure he wants to know. As long as it leads to this every time, he won’t ask. He will learn to live with these distended silences if only they never leave this bed. 

Andrew knows that it's a childish desire. Lately, they’ve both been speaking in half-truths, reverting to their shared language of dishonesty in the face of an uncomfortable truth: they’re not happy anymore. Not when they're apart.

And they’re almost always apart now. 

Realistically, arguably, they were never happy. But with the added miles, the time difference, the vast expenses of nothing between phone calls and the plans that keep falling through, he’s lost the feeling of contentment he used to enjoy around Neil. It's been replaced with something heavier, something more demanding, a kind of ache that doesn't let up, a kind of hunger that won't be sated. 

This new feeling verges on the cusp of a brilliant darkness, and it makes him question if the words _Neil_ and _home_ were ever truly synonymous.

He doesn’t know what to say when Neil falls back asleep without saying another word, but they're still curled next to each other. For a while, Andrew watches the curve of Neil’s back, the way each breath ripples through his chest. Eventually, Neil shuffles towards him in his sleep, and he looks so much younger like this, even with the scars and burns and freckles and the new wrinkles around his eyes. 

Andrew doesn't know what any of this means. 

He doesn't know what it means when Neil cooks dinner for him that evening and laughs while Andrew sits at the counter and quietly sips his drink, trying to memorize the sizzle of the pan, the spark of gas stovetop being turned on, the birds chirping outside in the summer heat. 

He doesn't know what it means when they get drunk on the dock afterwards and end up staring up at constellations that neither of them know by name. Orion, Andrew says, because that one’s easy.

Ursa Major, Neil says, but he points to a star that can’t possibly be right. 

Andrew doesn’t know what it means when Neil doesn’t comment on him wearing the Lion's hat on the morning they leave.

He doesn’t know what's going wrong between them, but he feels something shifting, and he can’t bring himself to ask. Not when he’s almost positive that Neil is _this close_ to running away again. 

They still stop in Palmetto to say hi to Coach and Abby and Bee. 

They still stop at the airport, where Neil steels his glare against a cloudy horizon and offers a weak two-finger salute as his goodbye, a mumbled _I'll call you later_ on his lips as he steps away from the Maserati and lets the door fall shut between them. As if shutting it himself would take too much effort. 

He looks every inch the scared kid that Andrew met almost a decade ago when he disappears into the terminal, lost and looking for an escape. 

It isn’t until Andrew is halfway back to Georgia that he sees the postcard tucked in the cupholder in the passenger side door, folded in half to be as inconspicuous as possible. He's turning down a street named Seaside and suddenly, there's a tiny evergreen forest in his car, painted in shades of green and grey and brown with the words _GREETINGS FROM NORTH CAROLINA_ printed across the bottom. 

He pulls off at the first rest stop he sees, hands shaking as he stares out at a glowing red sign for Mac's Diner that reflects across the hood of the Maserati.

Andrew kind of hates the postcard on principle alone; they have never been his thing, other than the one Neil sent him from Falmouth.

He doesn't know why he's thinking about Falmouth now.

God, he hopes Neil isn’t breaking up with him via a drawing of a North Carolina forest. The whole scene mocks him, and his stomach drops as he turns over the picture and reads the message Neil has left behind: 

_I don’t want to be alone._

Andrew almost stops reading right there, already certain that Neil is trying to explain that the distance isn’t working, but something compels him to finish.

_I asked my agent to find a team willing to buy out both of our contracts next season, and she sent my attorney the initial offer letters this morning. Yours is almost double what Atlanta’s giving you._

_How does Denver sound?_

Andrew sits in stunned silence. 

It takes time to process how surreal it is that Neil can write things like _at_ _torney_ and _agent_ and _contracts_ without feeling like a child playing at being an adult. 

It takes time to consider why Neil hasn’t mentioned this before, but a part of Andrew already knows exactly why he hasn't. Denver is just one more reason to stay, one more piece of the puzzle that makes up Neil Josten falling into place. Not just a team and a boyfriend and a cat and an apartment anymore.

Denver could be a home.

It’s fucking terrifying.

Andrew would know; his hands are shaking worse now than when he thought he was being broken up with. 

When he's good and ready, he lights a cigarette and leaves two voicemails on Neil’s phone, because the jerk’s plane still won’t land for another two hours.

The first is short, because he does genuinely hate Denver, and he's nothing if not honest: _Fu_ _ck Denver._

The second is only slightly longer, delivered exactly ten minutes after the first, once he’s spent long enough staring at the _Mac's Diner_ sign. The neon red is burned into his retinas, and he blinks away the ghostly letters while he waits for the beep. 

As much as he hates Denver, he hates the distance more.

_You know you’ll look worse in their colors than the Lion's. And I never signed up to live with your goddamn cat, so don't expect me to change the litter or whatever._

Before he hangs up, he runs a shaking hand through his hair. 

_Denver,_ he says quietly, and there's so much wrapped up in that one word that there's nothing else left for him to say, other than: _Fuck._

He hangs up, because Neil knows exactly what it all means. Andrew will be getting a call back in less than two hours anyway, as soon as Neil turns his phone on when he touches down in Washington. They'll talk about negotiations and money and Neil's stupid cat and whether they want an apartment or a condo or a house, whether Andrew will sell his place in Atlanta or keep it, whether this will work or if it will all crash and burn into a thousand pieces.

He shouldn't get his hopes up. An offer isn’t worth the paper it’s written on until it’s signed. And even then, it’s all contingent on his performance, on his abilities, on his continued success.

He exhales deeply. Neil would call it a laugh, like he always does, but Andrew doesn't think that's what this feeling is. 

It's relief.

He’s never dared to dream, but if he did, it would look like exactly like this: 

A cigarette. 

A parking lot.

A promise.

And Neil. 


End file.
